Thursday, May 17, 2012
Sheraton Hall (Sheraton Centre Toronto)
3:00 PM
R. Harwood1, C. White1, A. Pulido2 and A. J. Lincoln3, (1)Center for Autism Research Evaluation and Service, San Diego, CA, (2)Alliant International University, San Diego, CA, (3)Alliant International University;Center for Autism Research, Evaluation and Service, San Diego, CA, United States
Background: The Program for the Evaluation and Enrichment of Relations Skills (PEERS) program is a manualized, parent-assisted social skills intervention for adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. Parent (or main caregiver) participation is mandatory and parent sessions are conducted in parallel to teen sessions. The authors of the PEERS Program manual have presented studies evaluating outcomes related to the participating teen, whereas no current research findings have evaluated caregiver characteristics. With the PEERS Program and many other social skills programs, parent involvement is a crucial component and caregiver characteristics including caregiver psychopathology needs to be evaluated in order to tailor programs and recruitment to appropriate populations. Parent training in conjunction with social skills training has been supported in the literature as an effective means of developing and maintaining social skills in deficient children. Evidence suggests peer relationships are impacted not only by social skills of the adolescent, but also parenting factors, parental attachment and family climate. It has been suggested that caregivers’ goals and beliefs are important in predicting parental management of peer relationships and adolescents’ social skills over time.
Objectives: This study aims to evaluate and analyze the characteristics (including demographic make-up, socioeconomic status, and psychopathology) of caregivers who have a teen participating in a PEERS program replication study. Caregiver characteristics will be used to tailor future recruitment efforts.
Methods: Caregivers of teen participants enrolled in a center-based PEERS Program were administered the Symptom Checklist 90 as well as a demographic questionnaire. Data was collected related to socioeconomic status and education level of caregiver participants as well as method of payment for the program (private insurance versus cash pay).
Results: Upon collecting final data, this study will present relevant caregiver characteristics including psychopathology that are hypothesized to influence enrollment in the PEERS Program and possibly impact teen outcome measures.
Conclusions: Conclusions will be presented in final measures at the conclusion of data collection.
